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Sharks' growth pleases Brad

Sat, 24 Aug 2013 10:58

Sharks coach Brad McLeod-Henderson spoke of the "growth" his side has shown, following their second Currie Cup win of the season.

The Sharks recovered from a nine-point half-time deficit to beat the Free State Cheetahs 18-15 in their Round Three encounter in the Free State stadium on Friday..

The visitors trailed 6-15 at the break and not only came back to score 12 points for the victory, but kept the Cheetahs scoreless in the second half with some excellent defence.

That helped place the Durban side at the top of the Currie Cup log, pending the results of the weekend's remaining games on Saturday.

The Sharks take on the Blue Bulls next week and McLeod-Henderson said he was delighted that his team can do so on the back of two victories in as many weeks.

"We are obviously very happy with the two wins we got the last couple of weeks," he said after the game.

"Even more important for us is that we are growing and developing as a team. Every week we are getting better and better.

"We have got a great mix. We've got a couple of older players and some young guys which is great. We have a nice mix of experience and youth."

McLeod-Henderson added that he was pleased with the role the Sharks' replacements played in their recovery in the second half and the coach lauded his charges for their efforts against a Cheetahs side that had something to prove in their first home game of the competition.

"We are very happy with the impact the players from the replacement bench made," he said.

"A guy like Cobus Reinach help set up our second try and someone like Craig Burden also played his part. It was a blow to lose SP Marais so early in the match, but Jaco [van Tonder] did very well for us.

"Our defence was very good, specially in the second half. We showed fantastic character. The game was on the line until the 80th minute and our defence played a vital role in securing the victory for us."

Trailing by nine points at half-time, the Sharks opted not to make the mistake of changing their approach to the attacking play of the Bloemfontein outfit.

"We had a chat at half-time. We had done some good things in the first half and just needed to build on that," McLeod-Henderson said.

"We knew we had to keep the Cheetahs out with our defence and that we needed to keep thinking on our feet. That is what we did in the second 40 minutes."